Preparation: Internal Processing and Planning

CulturalSelf-Study_NAmen-Ra.docx

A Cultural Self-Study

An exposition of my reflection upon my cultural identity and conditioning.

In this section I demonstrate the process of mental preparation that has made me a culturally responsive practitioner. This process has entailed thorough self-examination and a serious commitment to engage in ongoing reflection.

The accompanying artifact illustrates the extent to which I reflected upon the events that shaped my cultural identity, including my experiences with racism. It provides an explanatory basis for my view that my encounters with racism and my ability to overcome systemic racism largely through educational advancement, places me in a prime position to identify with my students and to argue more forthrightly and convincingly to them that education (especially in scientific fields) can likewise enable them to overcome obstacles to their advancement. This sentiment also serves as source of solidarity between my students’ parents and grandparents and myself. For the latter have often experienced more overt manifestations of racism and frequently share the conviction that educational advancement holds the greatest potential to propel their children to a better life, less burdened by the weight of racism.

Implicit Association Test (IAT)

An image of the score I received upon completing the IAT appertaining to race.

Assessment of Ostensible Implicit Bias

The Implicit Association Test (IAT) formulated collaboratively by psychologists affiliated with Harvard University, the University of Virginia, and the University of Washington effects to assess the degree to which individuals exhibit implicit biases toward various groups (e.g. race, ethnicity, religion, disability status, etc.). I chose to take the test specific to race, inasmuch as this category is most pertinent to my professional setting and personal life experience. As can be seen in the accompanying artifact, I was deemed to harbor "a strong automatic preference for Black people over White people. It is admirable of the investigators to inquire of respondents whether they were skeptical of their resultant scores. Admittedly, I am somewhat skeptical that a survey of this crude kind can ascertain something as complex as one's psychological orientation toward an entire group of people based largely upon the rapidity of their responses to partial faces and value-laden words. But theirs is at least an attempt to study and provide some insight (however inexact and oversimplified) into a psycho-social problem of significant importance. Indeed, I do not reject the assessments categorization of my responses outright. It does not surprise me that a test of this type would detect some preference on my part for Black people over White people. For I identify more strongly with people who share my superficial appearance, socio-political background, cultural preferences, and who have a linked legacy of historical and present oppression. After all, there is a reason why, despite living in the overwhelmingly White and highly affluent rural area of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, I elected to commute over three hours each day to the poverty-stricken city of Baltimore to teach adolescent Black males struggling under the same socio-economic inequities afflicting most urban, minority educational institutions. I seek to eradicate injustice and the injustice that is most salient in my mind is the one that consistently consigns Black people (Black males more particulary) to inferior education, poor employment prospects and the resultant peril of the prison-industrial complex.

This image captures the breadth of texts that I prize for giving me a grounding in such diverse subjects as mathematics, science, philosophy, theology and literature. It also gives a glimpse of certain symbols that are significant to me, including the Hindu god, Siva (whose name I share), leonine Rams in repose symbolizing the Egyptian god, Amen-Ra (whose name I likewise share), and a sacred staff I inscribed with the Eye of Ra and the god, Khepera, who symbolizes incessant evolution and is the same image that adorns the cover of my book (rightmost image). My intellectual evoultion has indeed been incessant and this trait marks me as a transormative teacher.

Two of the texts that have had a formative influence upon my thinking, especially my effort to be an effective, culturally responsive educator.

One of my students holding his copy of my book, Evolutionary Nutrition, a work that reflects my ongoing, scientifically centered self-analysis; this photo further reinforces my philosophy that there can be no such thing as a transformative teacher in the absence of students amenable to transformation. My students have been amenable to instruction and transformation.

The Lure of Literature

Self-examination is at the core of culturally responsive teaching; literature is a powerful stimulus to such self-examination. The accompanying artifacts (above) illustrate the influence of literature and learning upon my cultural self-consciousness as presented in the preceding paper. I have been shaped far more decisively by the ideas that I have assimilated than by the material and social conditions that have surrounded me. Moreover, this ‘ideational engineering’ or “psychopoesis” has been self-driven. Thus do I consider myself an autodidact. I have endeavored to impart this ideal of autodidacticism to my pupils. The necessity of relying principally upon oneself to fundamentally educate oneself I have championed partly as an antidote to the inevitability of my students encountering educators and other authoritative figures who have little or no interest in their academic or intellectual advancement and may well militate against their mental progress. This has been a salient feature of my cultural and educational experience as has been the indispensible, invaluable aid of several outstanding educators—a few of whom (importantly) have been of a different race than my own. Autodidacticism characterized the life experience of one of my most influential preceptors, Frederick Douglass. This self-taught slave who set himself free both mentally and physically wrote with eloquence and an authority borne of bitter experience. In a particularly profound passage of his autobiography that has stayed with me he wrote vividly of the conceptual contrast between freedom and bondage as he languished on a plantation in Maryland, looking longingly at ships setting sail upon the Chesapeake Bay--the same sacred waters that I was wont to take my students: "You are loosed from your moorings, and are free; I am fast in my chains, and am a slave! You move merrily before the gentle gale, and I sadly befor the bloody whip! You are freedom's swift-winged angesl, that fly round the world; I am confined in bands of iron! O that I were free! O, that I were on one of your gallant decks, and under your protecting wing! Alas! betwixt me and you, the turbid waters roll. Go on, go on. O that I could also go! Could I but swim! If I could fly! O, why was I born a man, of whom to make a brute! The glad ship is gone; she hides in the dim distance. I am left in the hottest hell of unending slavery. O God, save me! God, deliver me! Let me be free! Is there any God? Why am I a slave? I will run away. I will not stand it. Get caught or get clear, I'll try it....I have only one life to lose. I had as well be killed running as die standing....It cannot be that I shall live and die a slave. I will take to the water. This very bay shall yet bear me into freedom" (Douglass, 1845: 59-60). Innumerable lessons can be learned from this lengthy tract, but a few serve my present purpose. First, it underscores how very recently my ancestors endured the inimical institution of slavery, with the parents of my venerable Great-grandfather whom I knew personally and revered, being contemporaries of Frederick Douglass, though suffering more acutely owing to their captivity in the deep South, thus farther removed from Northern "freedom" and more subject to the sadism of their cruel Caucasian captors. Second, it affirms the importance of self-reliance, self-determination, and self-possession. For whereas Douglass employed the literary device of the Deity, he was resolved to rely soley upon himself to secure his freedom. This is a powerful existential admonishment to all individuals who seek mental autonomy, uttered over a century before the philosophy of Existentialism arose from the ashes of the Second World War. This existential imperative exemplified by the life and literature of Douglass remains culturally relevant to me and is an integral aspect of my own incessant self-analysis. Lastly, Douglass' words put the present plight of Black people in perspective: We are not enslaved; we are not prevented from pursuing knowledge and wealth in a manner comparable to our captive forebears. This fact arguably imposes obligations upon the descendants of African slaves: do not disparage our undeniable progress; do not wallow in weakness; do not seek or expect affection from your oppressors; and squander no opportunities to attain education and consequent freedom.

The importance of viewing reality objectively through lenses influenced by race, class, gender, and cultural awareness, while not permitting one’s perspective to be unduly dominated by emotion or identity in dealing with individuals is an outlook that has greatly profited me and enriched my life. Such reflections on the real-world complexity of identity has prepared me to be a more culturally responsive and effective educator. Literature, again, has aided this outlook, especially the work of anthropologist Cheikh Anta Diop (the title of whose book is beside that of Douglass in the last image above). Early in my intellectual journey I was influenced by the culturally responsive pedagogy of Diop before this appellation was widely employed. Especially salient in my mind is his strictly scientific (not mythic) approach to Afrocentrism. As he relates concerning the burgeoning race consciousness among Blacks: "Admittedly three factors compete to form the collective personality of a people: a psychic factor, susceptible of a literary approach; this is the factor that would elsewhere be called national temperament, and that the Negritude poets have overstressed. In addition, there are the historical factor and the linguistic factor, both susceptible of being approached scientifically. These last two factors have been the subject of our studies; we have endeavored to remain strictly on scientific grounds. Have foreign intellectuals, who challenge our intentions and accuse us of all kinds of hidden motives or ridiculous ideas, proceeded any differently? When they explain their own historical past or study their languages, that seems normal. Yet, when an Afrocan does likewise to help reconstruct the national personality of his people, distorted by colonialism, that is considered backward or alarming. We contend that such a study is the point of deprture for the cultural revolution properly understood" (Diop, 1974:xiii-xiv). I am a proud product of this cultural revolution and it has made me a more culturally responsive teacher.

I have tended to identify strongly as an African American man. Along with this identification has come an awareness of the injustices that my people have endured. It is difficult not to become embittered by such awareness of injustice, especially when it is ongoning and affects the lives of the very children I am struggling to educate. However, I have managed to avoid the self-defeating bitterness of many socially radicalized Blacks (with whom I sympathize and simultaneously criticize). My relentless pursuit of truth (largely through literature) has enabled me to be more analytical about my own potential biases and to resist facile recourse to locating the lapses of myself or my people entirely in the machinations of White people or even in the operations of the system of white supremacy and institutionalized racism. Scientific literature and learning have played an important part in averting my deviation into the delusory direction of "reverse racism". Science has armed me with a more nuanced understanding of "race" itself, such that an over-identification with the superficial physical features and cultural inclinations that mark me as a Black man is intellectually unsupportable. Combined with a sociological and historical appreciation for the indescribable and dispicable evils that individuals within "races" and ethincites invariably and incessantly inflict upon each other, I have all but excorcised the scourge of racism from my psyche. Accordingly, I maintain that the authentic, dispassionate pursuit of truth is an effective way of becoming an anti-racist. Insensibly and steadily my students have assimilated this pedagogic principle and literature has been an indispensable aid in this intentional effort.

An excerpt transcribed from the Book of the Dead, among the texts I study in pursuance of mastery of Medu Nether ('Words of the God' i.e. Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphs).

In my indefatigable exploration of literature, I often highlight and restate the most salient ideas in Hieroglyphic. [Note the author's parenthetical employment (image left, bottom) of the supposedly "dead" Latin language; as indicated in my explanatory paragraph, I employ the "dead" language of Ancient Egyptian in a manner confessedly colored by classically-inclined scholars.]

The above image illustrates the perceived importance of my adoption of a culturally meaningful written idiom in my self-preparation as an exemplary educator of African American students, responsive to the unique nuances of the Black Diasporan experience.

Linguistic Liberation as Cultural Preparation

In my estimation, in order for my students to use their individual assets to increase pride in their cultural identity, I myself must model this. I described above how literature lends to this imperative, now I shall recount how my related use of language also aids this aim.

The African American experience is unique in many respects relative to other races and ethnicities. Undoubtedly, White supremacy has sought to undermine every cultural group arbitrarily categorized as "other”, even ethnicities that would come to be considered as kindred Caucasians. But Black people have suffered the indignity of a systematic severing of any salutary linkages to our land of origin, being obliged to begin our familial biographies with the trauma of trans-Atlantic slavery. Blacks have been bereft of country, tribe, language, native religion/philosophy, and surname in a methodical way unmatched by the piteous plights of other peoples (notwithstanding the morally problematic penchant for comparing collective cultural suffering). To be intellectually liberated, the preparation of a culturally-aware African American educator (in whatever field) necessitates uncommon ardor if indeed it is to be authentic and thorough. I have subjected myself to such preparation and it has taken many forms. One such form is language. The medium of intellectual discourse and education is the word. Moreover, it is the written word that holds the power to pass potent ideas from generation to generation in a way that preserves the thoughts of peoples and ages. The classical languages of Greek and Latin have done this for Whites of the Western World. The classical language of Ancient Egyptian can conceivably do this for continental and Diasporan Africans alike. This is a lesson I learned early in my education form such distinguished intellectuals as the Senegalese scholar, Dr. C. Anta Diop. My more than decade-long effort to master the most ancient, most continuously employed written language known to mankind has been dictated by personal and pedagogical interests. It is an undertaking that is admittedly inaccessible to most educators (in keeping with ideas espoused by Thorstein Veblen (1899) in his monumental, though compendious tract, The Theory of the Leisure Class). Yet it is a fruitful educational framework that holds the potential to effect a fundamental change in the mentality of the African American student, especially when properly propounded by an African American preceptor. Thus, I have made this a principal part of both my preparation and practice as a culturally-responsive educator.

Closely linked to the lack of a mother-tongue or a culturally-tethering script for African Americans is the bane of being branded with the very names of people who possessed our predecessors as property or names whimsically or randomly applied to enslaved persons and passed down dumbly from generation to generation often without adequate reflection. Early in my intellectual development I vowed that I would throw off the servile signifier of my ‘slave name’ and adopt an appellation that affirmed the identity that I autonomously engineered for myself. This symbolic, though highly significant, act of ‘nomenclatural self-determination’ has also been a prominent part of my preparation as a culturally-cogent African American educator. On each of my prepared lessons, I make a point of prominently writing my name in Egyptian Hieroglyphs. As shall be mentioned in the Execution segment of this section, each of my students has been enabled to inscribe his name in Ancient Egyptian and all are capable of recognizing, writing, or repeating phrases that I have made mantras in our classroom culture, such as: Rekh Djesf (‘Know Thyself’), Djed Maat (‘Speak Truth’), and Seba em Ankh (‘The Science/Teachings of Life’, i.e. Biology). Students and parents have expressed to me that they find this practice empowering, culturally-affirming and intellectually expansive.

Content Conveying Reflections Upon & Preparation for Culturally Responsive Teaching

CRT & The Brain

Z. Hammond espouces a neuro-cognitive approach to culturally responsive teaching that accords considerably with my own and serves to make me more critical of my own cultural lenses.

Personal Reflection on Z Hammond

As a science teacher and theoretical biologist with an interest in the intersections among learning, neuro-plasticity, psychotherapy and optimal health, I find the work of Zaretta Hammond especially insightful. In her masterful work, Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain (Hammond, 2015), she makes a cogent case for the centrality of culture in modulating the functioning of the brain in ways beneficial and detrimental to the mental health of students. Simply stated, neurological connections are the physiological basis of learning; conceptual connections catalyze neurological connections; cultural connections color conceptual connections; educational content and experiences that capitalize upon students’ cultural perspective enable strong conceptual connections and, therewith, neurological connections; neurological connections, to complete this consciously circuitous ratiocination, constitute the physical foundation of learning. Crucially, if an educator is unable to identify with, share in, and understand the cultural conditioning and background of students or (worse) projects a cultural perspective that actually undermines the cultural integrity of the students that he or she purports to teach, the entire educational enterprise is correspondingly compromised. Such is my understanding of culturally responsive teaching inflected by the neuro-cognitive element that theorists such as Hammond embrace.

It is Hammond’s reinforcement of the importance of cultural relevance that I find so persuasive and helpful as an aid in my own intellectual odyssey. Consequently, I am compelled to reflect: ‘If I find cultural and practical relevancy so central in my own learning, in my own work, research and writing, should it not be similarly central in enhancing the intellectual development of my students?’ My teaching experience suggests that this is indeed the case. Hammond frames her opus as an answer to a similarly syllogistic question: namely, ‘if the brains of Black students are indeed amply wired to engage in high-level learning, why do they so frequently fall short of their mental potential?’ Hammond’s principal answer—that conventional educational practices have failed to make content culturally relevant to African American students and that the neural connectivity catalyzed by such relevancy of content—aligns with my own pedagogical approach, especially to the import of the ‘translational’ aspect of science as expounded in the Access section of this compilation. Hammond’s stress upon the neuro-stimulatory efficacy of culturally relevant teaching thus compliments my multifactorial approach, integrating physical and psychological elements to facilitate the fulsome flourishing of my students. An educator who customarily considers the cultural context of his students and creates authentic learning experiences based thereupon shows himself to be a truly transformative teacher. That is what I have striven to do.

AAI_Page 1 Snapshot.pdf

The AAI: My Monograph on Mental Health with Relevant Applications to CRT

This article illustrates aspects of my approach to culturally responsive teaching insofar as it reflects potential solutions to real-world issues encountered by my students (specifically substance abuse and the alleviation of psycho-socio-emotional distress). Moreover, it discusses modalities by which mental health can be practically improved in ways accessible to my students.

Optimizing Mental Health to Ensure Improved Educational Outcomes

In my paraprofessional work as a psychoanalyst and researcher, I have made the modulation of the operations of the mind through meditation, optimal nutrition, and physical activity a centerpiece of my practice as exposited in my monograph in Neuroscience & Medicine (Amen-Ra, 2014). I repeatedly impel my students to reflect upon their lifestyle choices, to conscientiously counter the destructive ways that (what is erroneously, though commonly conceived as) Black culture, Black cuisine, and more Negro (i.e. Black lifeways) can undermine our mental and physical health. Throughout this profile of my pedagogical practice I have indicated how my instruction has explicitly addressed the linkages among lifestyle, learning, longevity and optimal physical and mental health. These linkages, to reiterate, are also integral to my work as a researcher, writer, and therapist. The overlapping of these areas enables me to authentically integrate expertise from my paraprofessional practice into my pedagogical practice to the benefit of my pupils. This approach amounts to ‘translational science in action’. For it is among my uppermost aims to enable my students to apply what they are taught to the improvement of their own lives. Conspicuously, it is science that must be marshaled to counteract what is confusedly conceived to be the “culture” of Black people concerning diet and physical activity. The relevance of culturally responsive teaching to this arena is that it requires one to genuinely know the common cultural (and culinary) conventions of a people in order to authoritatively and convincingly critique its problematic and indeed pathological points. I leverage my identity as a Black man, substantially steeped in the diverse sub-cultures of Black people in America and the Diaspora to inform my students about how to evaluate the effects that their culturally influenced actions have on their health. My approach is both theoretical and practical as I present the science establishing the influence of diet and lifestlye on such aspects of health as neurocognition and I provide my students with a model of optimal health that I myself have formulated and practiced for two decades. This dual delivery of theory and practice provides the type of cultural connectivity that promotes conceptual connectivity that catalyzes, I contend, neuro-cognitive connectivity. The paper cited above adds other elements—specific dietetic practices, exercise, and meditation—to my holistic approach to mental health generally and to addiction specifically. These elements, I argue, are applicable to education and are ideal for advancing a culturally-informed antidote to many of the ailments that undermine the educational progress of African American students.

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